Dr. Sudhir Arora, MBBS
Pune's Leading Mind Control Consultant and Motivational Speaker

Guilt

What Is Guilt
Guilt is the most destructive human emotion. It is found only in man.
It is basically anger against your own self for perceiving yourself as a bad person for having done something bad.
All of us suffer from guilt to various degrees.
When guilt is essential to control of your wild and primitive urges for the survival of the society and species-it is a healthy social guilt. But, when guilt starts destroying you from inside, then it is a very harmful neurotic guilt.

How Guilt Develops
Parents, teachers, priests and society all contribute to make you guilty. e.g. :
"You would do this if you really loved me."
"If you talk back, you are a bad son."
"I’ll die if you don’t do as I say."
"You have brought shame on our family honor."
"If you don’t give donation to the temple, then God will not love you and you are not a good man."
"If you go out with the opposite sex, then you are a characterless bad person."
Sex and religion are the most widely prevalent guilt makers.

Influence Of Guilt
Guilty person feels inferior, under confident and insecure.
He has a low self-esteem.
Therefore, either he develops some stress-related disease, or he becomes a workaholic and tries to be a perfectionist, or he tries to be an ideal mate, an ideal parent, an ideal child, an ideal employee, an ideal teacher, etc. etc.

Handling Guilt Constructively

Witnessing
Accept your imperfections and always simply witness your human "grey" nature. Understand that actions can be good or bad. But you are always good. You are different from your actions.

Sharing
Express your guilt to someone, because hidden and suppressed guilt is the most destructive guilt. Unburden your "crime" on your best friend and then "advise" him how really insignificant that blunder is. It’s very important to accept mistakes and take corrective actions. But it’s not right to just keep on feeling guilty for that mistake and not do anything concrete.

Improving Your Self-Esteem
Feeling guilty does not mean that you are a "caring human being".
Striving for improvement is correct but feeling guilty for imperfections is wrong.
It’s good to learn from your mistakes of the past but don’t put yourself into a cage of guilt. Feeling guilty makes the situation even worse and more worse.

Setting Down-To-Earth Standards
Don’t look for “approval” from others. Make your own realistic standards of behaviors. God made your imperfect and, therefore, forgives you for taking imperfect decisions. If He can forgive you, then why can’t you forgive yourself ?
Therefore, make your own realistic moral codes. Stick to them. Only you are the judge of your own actions. Don’t judge yourself by the standards set by others.